1 April, 2009
The new U11 team finally commenced their season after 2 washouts
the previous weekends. Opposition this week was Ballyboden and the
report is from the white team. With numbers slightly down due to
sickness and mid term break our team was supplemented by 3 U10s -
Noah, Shane and Lochlann.
We started a bit ring rusty and Ballyboden stormed into a 1-1 to
0-0 lead after the opening few minutes but we settled after this
and began to turn the tables on the opposition. Starting from the
back our goalkeeper Aaron Lyons was dominating his area and picking
out our players with pinpoint kickouts. Our full back line of Kevin
Nolan and Lochlann Dougan were their usual dogged and tireless
selves in cutting out attacks. Shane and Ryan Purdy were doing some
fine fielding in the half back line and feeding off ball to our
tirelessly roving midfield of Ben Hoskin and Conn Benville. With
this kind of play we began to overrun the middle third of the field
and to set up the forwards for opportunities. However the
Ballyboden defenders were not going to let us in too easily and we
squandered some shots but we did pick off a fine point from
distance to leave the half time score at 1-1 to 0-1 against us. The
second half really upped the tempo and Bray quickly turned their
midfield dominance into scores by quickly getting two goals from
fine set-up play by Oisin Dougan. Playing full forward were Kevin
Spaine and Aengus Muldoon and their ability to take possession of
the ball and hold up play caused panic in the oppositions back
line. The on rushing half forward line of Noah Cummins and Conn
Benville were then able to pick up the passed out ball and steal a
goal and a point for us. With only minutes remaining we held a slim
3-2 to 1-3 lead and Ballyboden were pressing hard and eventually
they poached a goal but we held out after that to register a fine
moral boosting win of 3-2 to 2-3.
Unfortunately, the green team just lost out in a high scoring
and fast moving game on the second pitch to leave the aggregate
score at Bray 6-13 Ballyboden 7-17. More on that match next
week.
